Sandow Power Station Unit Offline after Lightning Strike from Tuesday Storms

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--During the severe thunderstorms across Texas on Tuesday afternoon, March 18, 2008, lightning struck the Sandow power station in Rockdale, Texas, sending Unit 4 offline.

One worker close to the plant said: "We're sitting here in the dark. Alcoa is back up, but all we have going are the diesel generators. We're waiting for the power company to re-string some new lines in the switchyard where the lightning struck. It was yard 138, and it caused the loss of all our incoming power. It knocked Unit 4 offline, to boot."

Unit 4 is a 558-megawatt coal (or fuel oil) powered unit that has been in service since 1981. It had just come back from a forced outage two days before, although that outage was due to a boiler tube leak. If all goes well, plant personnel hope to have power restored to the facility and have the unit back in service on Thursday afternoon, March 20, 2008.

The station is owned and operated by Luminant Energy Company LLC (Dallas, Texas). Unit 4 is the only unit at the plant currently in service, although a 465 MW coal/fuel oil unit is under construction. That unit, designated Unit 5, and is scheduled to be operational by late 2009.

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